CNN Dubs Nas As ‘The Greatest Lyricist Of All Time’

The debate of greatest MC to ever do will forever be a part of the Hip Hop world. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject even one of America’s greatest news networks, CNN. In a new opinion piece by CNN writer Eliott C. McLaughlin Nasir Jones has already took the title. Check out some excerpts from the article.

With “Life is Good,” Nas dropped his ninth No. 1 hip-hop album since 1994. Seven of those have gone platinum, which places him second among rappers only to Jay-Z with 11. (We’re not counting compilations or collaborations here, only original solo efforts, and yes, Tupac Shakur had nine, but five were posthumous releases.)

t also ties Nas with Snoop Dogg or Snoop Lion or whatever his name is and it puts the Queens native one plaque ahead of Eminem, Too Short, OutKast and LL Cool J, all of whom belong in the greatest-ever discussion, as well.

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Which brings us to the top five, the professors emeritus. Out of respect for Nas’ aversion to lists, let’s handle them in no particular order.

Eminem is a beast. As Nas points out, the list will be different in 10 years, and Slim Shady may be atop it, but in 2013 you can’t challenge Nas if you dropped your first LP in 1999.

Then there’s Pac and Biggie — and the point where the debate might venture into hurting someone’s feelings.

Makaveli dropped six albums, four of them platinum, between 1991 and 1996 before he was gunned down in Las Vegas. The Notorious B.I.G. put out his first record in 1994 and was slain in Los Angeles weeks before his second release, “Life After Death,” in 1997.

Both have successful releases after their killings, but their life spans, tragically, were too brief, and for that reason — and that reason only — it’s unfair to put them up against a man with two decades in the game.

Nas still believes Pac and Biggie are “two of the greatest who’ve ever done it,” and it’s not because they died. Big L died. Guru died. Big Pun, Eazy-E and Ol’ Dirty Bastard died, but they didn’t leave the same legacy.

“I just think Biggie was something else. He was the Hitchcock of this thing, man. He told you a story. There was a seriousness that came with it that can’t compare with nothing,” Nas said.

He wishes the pair hadn’t been taken in their mid-20s, he said, because they “would be at the top of the game” today, and they would’ve pushed him.

“I’d probably be better if they were still around,” he said. “I think I’d be a lot better.”

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… And then there was one: Jay-Z, a man who spent the late 1990s and early 2000s also pushing Nas, and his buttons, during their quest to rock Biggie Smalls’ “King of New York” crown.

Let’s not bother with the details of their long-snuffed beef or who said what about whom on what album (though, let’s face it, Nas’ Ginsu verses on “Ether” made Jay’s “Takeover” and “Super Ugly” sound a little nanny-nanny-boo-boo. Jigga himself called “Ether” an inescapable “figure-four leg lock”).

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Nas’ brilliance may lie in his ability to keep adapting that story through the years, whether it’s from the days when he “dropped out of Cooley High/gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie” or lessons learned as father to his teen daughter, Destiny: “She heard stories of her daddy thuggin’/so if her husband is a gangster, can’t be mad, I love him.”